Revel Systems Reviews

The backend reporting and ability to view multiple locations from one place.

The online ordering and loyalty systems are not good.

Reporting is real time and accurate. Variety of reports is exceptional

Help desk is hit or miss depending on issue and responder. This is improving but has a ways to go

it enabled us to move to contactless ordering and payment online during pandemic restrictions.

I find it looks quite ugly, the design architecture does not feel as intuitive to me as other competing products I've used. Setup was quite gruelling. Restrictions on what card terminals can now be used with the software feels like a step back.

The only reason we considered Revel was because of IOS compaitiblity.

Bait and switch. Our monthly subscription started and $350. It is now for (with the same # of POS stations) $750. Originally you could use your own merchant account. Now you have to pay an additional $150 a month to use your own provider. I finally switched to a different POS provider. When I called to cancel, Revel says I renewed FOR THREE YEARS by a pop up screen. None of my employees saw the "pop up contract". Stay away horribly unethical company.

Support is fast and efficient. POS is easy to use at the back end.

Some of the options to group orders on the dockets printed could be more flexible so the dockets are less wordy and shorter.

Very easy to use and navigate through, most definitely would recommend.

none,Very easy to use and navigate through, most definitely would recommend.

You can program it to accept tips on charge card which increased the barista's tips. IT was a lot better than our previous system.

The backend stuff is hard to figure out and the customer service isn't the best. Also you need quite a bit of training to be comfortable with using it on a day to day basis.

I can see exactly what we sold on a certain day. They look impressive so despite the fact that they have low functionality they look really pretty....but, lets be honest....that's mostly the ipad.

Notice how it's spelled rEVEL. (it's illiterate evil with an R). Things I though rEVEL would do but it doesn't, problems we have, and why you shouldn't purchase revel for your establishment.

1. When you set up a customer, they are not automatically set up to collect reward points. Your staff have to create a rewards card separately, then link it to the customer. We've had lots of input errors because of this. The customer and reward points numbers are a customers phone number, which means that if they change their phone number you have to change their customer number. Then deactivate their rewards card number. Then create a new rewards card. Then go to the back end and download the entire customer matrix, insert the number of reward points they should have under their new number, then upload all of the data back into the system. Something that you can only do when you are closed for the day. So many things with revel are like this. Something that should be simple is the most cumbersome thing ever.

2. Customers cant fill in their own information on the customer facing display which leads to lots of inputting errors.

3. The only way collected customer emails link into your email program is if you pay a hefty monthly fee (per pos station) for a third party app.

4. If a customer chooses to have their receipt emailed to them, the system does not collect that email and sync it to their customer identification.

5. In Canada here, there are no Province options when filling out customer details so we can't even collect their address properly.

6. Want to send a coupon to your top 50 customers? Good luck There is no report that you can run for that. Tons of data. No way to mine it. Have fun paying a third party to mine your data for you.

7. Want to know who purchased an item on a specific day? Once again, all this data, with no reports to mine it.

8. GLITCHY! Open orders hanging open, customer reward points not being accrued correctly, and weird little things like pop up balloons that slow down transaction time by 5 seconds, customer list not being alphabetical, orders re-opening hours later showing few cents owing on it, lag time between info going up to the cloud and back down to the stations. (a customer wants to exchange something they bought 5 minutes ago? They have to go to the same pos station they bought it at as the sale will not show up on the other stations for hours). Items that we sell by the each suddenly show an inventory of 1.86 units, where did that .14 of a unit go?

9. CUMBERSOME, the procedures for creating gift cards, processing returns, creating a customer, linking that customer to a reward card. All of it is just so damned cumbersome, takes so many taps on the ipad and is not intuitive....even for our millennial cashiers.

10. The sales people flat out lie. I asked really specific functionality questions from our sales person, who flat out lied about the systems capabilities. Then dropped us like a hot potato once he had our money. I spent the next month chasing Revel to make sure that the install happened before we opened. This attitude of sale first, customer service last, follows through. The hubs that they sold us are glitchy and faulty. We complained about them for a full year. Then we got an email offering us their new and improved network hubs. So basically they sold me crap. Knew that they sold me something that didn't work. Then offered a discount on selling the replacement to me.

11. The Customer Management system does very little. Once again, we had to pay a third party to figure out who our top customers were, then go through their profiles one by one to gather their emails to send them all an email to offer them a reward for being a top customer.

12. You can't redeem multiple rewards at once, or process a refund without a customer making a purchase(we sell milk in reusable glass bottles that the customer gets money back when they bring back their bottle, you can't process this if they just come back to return the bottle without making a purchase), or or process two refunds and a reward under the same transaction. So many glitchy things.

13. Someone will reply to this saying there are no open tickets on our account. And this is true. Because the reply to all of these things is that the feature doesn't exist and I should put in a request for a new feature. Which I have done. Repeatedly over the last 3 years. And here we are, still calling revel support asking why if you sell systems in Canada can I not enter a Canadian address in the system.

14. Poorly trained staff. We are a seasonal business and each spring when we open up, we have to have revel support enter some identification numbers on the back end to have their system work with our payment processor monaris (the only one they offer). It always takes several weeks of my calling back and sitting on hold to get this simple thing done. Every time. This is what it's like calling revel every time. I'm sure that there are lots of weird glitchy things with every system out there but revel really appears as though it was built poorly from the outset and has software flaws that can not be changed.

One of my managers spends 10-20 hours per week working on fixing revel errors, calling customer service, figuring out how the system works now that there is another update, writing detailed training manuals for our staff to us the system. It's just so time consumptive and terrible. It makes it all the worse that revel folks just repeat the party line and don't actually look for solutions to the system problems. "Fill in a feature request form" It's like they've all drunk the kool-aid and have become automatons controlled by an evil wizard named Revel.

It looks nice and sleek on the counter. The actual POS is pretty straight forward after training and most employees caught on quickly.

Where to start?? First, the monthly fees are insane considering the poor quality of the product and customer service. For two locations and three terminals, we paid fees to Revel each month.
We've experienced a lot of equipment issues (tickets not printing to kitchen, card swipe goes down, mobile unit won't connect and allow orders to be taken, etc) oftentimes in the middle of a lunch rush.
We have at least 2 customers every single day tell us that the online ordering isn't working. The system will look like it took their order (and they'll see pending charges on their cards), but they'll either get an error message or nothing at all. We often have people show up to pick up the order they placed online only to realize that it never came through on our system, but Revel still posts the charges as pending and it doesn't drop off the card for 3 days....not a fun thing to tell customers!
We have not had a great experience with customer service, and often end up on the phone for over an hour (again, often during a lunch rush). We've had several instances where no one was ever able to answer our issue.
Our accountants (who exclusively do restaurants) have found errors in reports (including tax reports for the day) multiple times.
Overall, this system just doesn't live up to the quality that should come with such high fees.
I called and emailed to put in our notice of cancellation at the end of our 18-month contract (they require 30 days, I put in my written notice 60 days, since their team hasn't been super responsive), I at first would get no response. When I finally did they told me that I couldn't put in my request until 30 days, which just seemed odd to me.

This system is highly customizable and easy to use. Reports are excellent and Revel does a nice job of continuously updating the backend to be more useful. Keeping track of employee hours is easy and efficient.

We have been a customer since 2012 and Revel has changed the playing field:

1) Revel now charges more per terminal per month if you choose to not use their credit card processing service. This wasn't the case when we signed up.

2) We purchased 2 scales in 2012 and two more for a second location in 2014. Revel's updated system no longer supports these peripherals. Revel offered me a discount for replacement of these scales for ones that work. Not good enough! This same situation occurred earlier with printers which I had to repurchase.

In addition to changing the playing field, the customer service is not good. Expect the system to go down at least 3 to 4 times a year when Apple upgrades their iOS.

Revel has changed their business model. They are now in the business of credit card processing. I see this as a sign of a struggling business and would be concerned about their longevity.

3) Confusing payment structure.

Revel systems has been nothing but a joke since I have gotten it. Owner's can't reassign delivery orders to a new driver? Drivers are able to cash drop to NO WHERE when the wrong till is used? I can't check another drive in, as an owner, on my log in without it going into MY virtual till?

Once again, Revel Systems is a JOKE to use as a delivery POS system. The support team is absolutely clueless, everyone has to talk to their higher up colleague just to tell me they can't do anything about it. At this point, I have more knowledge then some of these techs that are from Lithuania.

Terrible TERRIBLE customer service, TERRIBLE product, and TERRIBLE value for what you get.

Revel has a lot of features that allow us to easily keep track of our visitor numbers and inventory. The system is very easy for our staff to use and it requires very little training.

We have run into numerous technical issues with Revel and their customer service has not been very helpful when resolving some issues.

The best thing about this System is the easy and intuitive interface. It greatly facilitates the operations of the day and allows us to always work in a better way. It has, also, a number of options and improvements that allow me to adapt to my needs, especially the part of the discounts. They are the best!

The bad thing is the implementation, being such a complete software it takes a long time to configure all the functions to your liking to work in a better way. However, with practice and patience, it is possible to get ahead.

Easy to add specials and new items, great to check sales and labor costs on my phone wherever I was. Light weight - easy to use.

Terminals went out of sync with each other and caused major problems with ordering and reports, affected customer service. Every time Apple does an update the system does not work (2-3 times a year). Customer service is not much of a help. We had to remove the system after 2 years we had so many problems. They still send me daily reports a year later after we cancelled with them.

The analytics. Its great being able to look over past orders and watch trends

Tech support. The first year or so I spent a lot of time on the phone with tech support. Some of the problem was me just not understanding the system. Although a few of the problems were something I could not have known about. Tier 1 tech support was not helpful after a certain point. But it felt very difficult to get my problems looked at by someone with more knowledge. i was often told I would get a phone call back but never received a call. More often than not, I would get an email with a vaguely worded fix. After a year or so i would spend hours fixing a problem myself because this ended up being faster than calling tech support and waiting for an answer.
The lack of speaking to someone who can help fix the problem was very frustrating. Not to say tier one tech support was bad. they we're as helpful as they could be. But some of the problems we had needed someone with more knowledge. And the lack of speaking to that person was disappointing.

The ability to take orders at a table when it is stable

The Revel POS system continually drops out, the backend continually goes down. Our Revel support officer in Sydney claims he is not aware of anyone else having issues. I have phoned several other businesses today, they are all having issues with the Revel dropping out, backend going down, can't reach main POS. Poor customer service based in another country. We are meant to be VIP customers so revel says. Our inventory system is still not working after 5 months. After reading many reviews it seems we are not the only people. No one in Sydney can make decisions and they admit they are left in the dark by America, with one sales consultant admitting it seems we have become another American corporation with no customer support. In over 5 years in Hospitality i have never come across such a poor product that misrepresented.